Scriptures and Hymns to Grow Your Joy This ChristmasSample

Day 2: Delight in God’s goodness

READ: Psalm 98

LISTEN: “Joy to the World”

REFLECT:

This hymn’s title says it all! When we sing, “While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains/ Repeat the sounding joy,” we’re proclaiming a truth straight from Psalm 98: The entire creation, from a speck of seaweed to the grandest mountain, calls us to revere our glorious God — and joins us in praising Him. Both Psalm 98 and “Joy to the World” tell of jubilant, irrepressible praise to the creativity and power of the Creator. It’s wildly worshipful.

When was the last time you “shout[ed] for joy to the Lord” because of His glory? This repeated shouting in the psalm and the “sounding joy” of the hymn aren’t some forced admission of God’s provision. Rather, they’re the overflow of a heart that delights in God because His goodness is abundantly evident everywhere we look in the world. And God’s character — His holiness, salvation, righteousness, love, and faithfulness — is a legitimate cause for joy, too.

The Bible portrays this kind of joy as a transformative force that has its source in God’s pure goodness. God “has done marvelous things” — thus “all the earth” is exhorted to “shout for joy before the Lord, the King” (vv. 1, 4, 6). Simply because “the Savior reigns,” humans and nature are called to sing, to use their whole selves in exuberant, imaginative worship of God. And that worship will show the world the “wonders of His love.”

What in your life fuels your joyful worship of God this season?